UW Ag Dean Outlines Future Goals of Brucellosis Team

May 13, 2009

Wyoming has emerged as a national leader in combating
brucellosis, but more research and additional management solutions are
needed to fight the disease, according to testimony presented today
(Wednesday) to members of the state's Joint Agriculture, State and
Public Lands and Water Resources Interim Committee during its meeting at
Northwest Community College in Powell.

University of Wyoming College of Agriculture Dean Frank Galey,
chairman of the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Team, said long-term
solutions are needed to fight brucellosis, a bacterial disease that can
cause domestic cattle, elk and bison to abort their calves. Elk and
bison of the Greater Yellowstone area of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are
the last major reservoirs of brucellosis in the United States.

Among the team's top recommendations is to continue support for the
Wyoming Wildlife Livestock Disease Research Partnership, a collaborative
effort of the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department, the Wyoming Department of Agriculture and the Wyoming
Livestock Board.

The partnership has supported research about vaccine developments,
improved diagnostics and other livestock and wildlife health
initiatives. Galey said UW researchers with expertise in management and
health of both wildlife and cattle have conducted in-depth studies on a
variety of issues related to brucellosis.

"We're grateful for the state legislature's support for elk handling
units and Game and Fish actions and testing, and for our congressional
delegation's support for wildlife disease research in the form of
several special research grants," he said.

Such support is essential, he said, because the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and federal animal health agencies have established other
priorities and do not appear interested in funding brucellosis research.

Other recommendations include continuing to encourage Game and Fish
managers to work with ranchers to develop management plans for domestic
and wildlife herds. He noted the cooperative effort has been successful
in creating a framework for developing those plans.

"Those plans were specifically designed to address issues to minimize
contact between elk and cattle, to describe ways to reduce transmission
on the feed grounds themselves and to have a dialogue about the fate of
each winter feed ground," Galey said, noting that state support was
requested and received to assist in developing those plans. The plans
were successful in part because ranchers cooperated, and he encouraged
maintaining relationships with them.

The team continues to pursue additional measures including relief to
ranchers for testing, vaccination and the costs of spaying heifers.

Galey also outlined other recommendations under major topic areas:

-- Maintaining Class-Free Brucellosis status for cattle, (the state
can have no more than one infected herd of cattle within a calendar year
of being called infected), surveillance and transmission between
species;

-- Developing an action plan of what to do in the event a new case in cattle is identified;